


Redemption

by Funfetti



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Violence, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:28:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28025508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Funfetti/pseuds/Funfetti
Summary: Sequel to "My Name's Not Joe"“Careful, Johan,” Bane said quietly, his hand pressing down with more pressure on the boy’s shoulder. He slowly lowered his head down to the boy’s face, his mouth breathing warm air into Johan’s ear. “How quickly you forget you are mine, body and soul. You have agreed to give all of yourself to me. Willingly. Your language and tone are not appreciated.”The boy turned his head so his golden eyes were level with the man’s gray gaze. “I can’t give you anything if I’m dead.”
Relationships: Bane (DCU)/Original Male Character(s), Bruce Wayne/Original Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

_Montana, December, Three Months after events of “My Name’s Not Joe”_

It was snowing outside, a dusty white curtain falling down upon the cabin. Fir and spruce grew all around the forested area and some elk were roaming not too far away. Snowcapped mountains were visible in the distance that could have been in a calendar. The cabin was not in the remote wilderness but the inhabitants still had privacy as the nearest neighbor or town were several miles away. Light was coming from inside the cabin. The rustic fireplace was emitting a soft glow that could be seen through the trees.

Inside, a boy was by himself in a bathroom. The door was closed so he could be alone. He was in pain. These days, going to the bathroom was not a simple experience for the boy. He was a young man, a little over twenty years old, but he felt elderly since he struggled with the simple act of urinating - it was uncomfortable and difficult. Finally, after several minutes of straining, a stream of red-tinged urine fell into the toilet bowl. The boy sighed in relief.

The harsh bathroom light shined down on Johan. He was sweating and shaking, his hand propped against the wall above the toilet to help steady him. The boy was looking down into the toilet bowl. The urine stream he had been able to painfully push out turned the toilet water more red than yellow.

_At least it’s getting better_ , he thought with a sad smirk. _Less blood this time_.

He flushed the toilet and washed his hands at the small vanity. He cupped some water in his hands and splashed it on his face to wash off the beads of sweat. He felt better now that his bladder was emptied. Johan didn’t want to look in the bathroom mirror, but his head slowly met his reflection nonetheless.

“Jeez,” the boy whispered in a tired exhale. “I look like shit.”

His face was gaunt. He had lost weight since leaving Gotham in September. There were dark rings under his eyes from lack of rest. Each night the boy found himself waking up with fevers, his sheets soaked and his pillow damp from his wet hair. Due to his lack of sleep he found himself dozing off when awake and he took several naps during the day. His back and sides constantly ached as his kidneys were trying to flush out the tiny robots, like he had never-ending bouts of kidney stones that had to pass. His body was fighting to get the dead nanomachines out of his veins the same as it would an infection.

Johan stared into his golden eyes and bit his bottom lip out of worry. _My eyes look dull_ , he thought. _Like I’m dying_ … The boy snorted. “Hell,” he said aloud to his reflection, “maybe I am.”

Dr. Saunders never told Johan about any research into what happens when the nanomachines cease to function in an integrated host. In most of the test subject trials, the prospective host was usually killed – either in the initial experimentation process or shortly after. As far as Johan knew he was the only test subject that had survived for years without dying from his symbiotic relationship with the nanos. That meant the possibility of a host outliving their nanomachines was never tested. Johan was alone to suffer these newfound effects in these uncharted scientific waters.

_If only Dr. Saunders was here to observe and document her findings_ , he thought. _Maybe I should be taking notes. I wish Lucius was here…_

The boy wiped his hands dry and patted the excess water off his face with a towel. He took one last side glance in the mirror before turning off the light and opening the bathroom door.

He was met by the hulking mercenary standing outside.

“Johan,” said the deep voice. The boy startled, jerking back a little. _I didn’t even hear him come down the hall_ , he thought in frustration. The man put a large hand on the boy’s shoulder, squeezing it lightly. “Have you forgotten to mind your surroundings so easily?”

Bane was staring down at the boy, his gray eyes crinkled in amusement, his scarred lips curled in a smile. The boy huffed in exasperation.

“Yeah, well try pissing out little nano-razorblades for three months straight,” Johan replied, staring at the man. “Then tell me how closely you listen for a ninja outside the bathroom as you’re peeing in agony.”

At this Bane’s eyes narrowed. “You had been gone for some time. I was checking to make sure you were…well.”

Just last month Bane had found the boy on the floor of the living room. Johan had been seizing on the floor. Barsad had to inject him with Ativan from their medical supplies to stop the convulsions. Johan had been so embarrassed; not only had he wet himself during the episode, but he didn’t remember any of it. It hadn’t happened again since, but Johan knew it had left the large man shaken. He could sense Bane was on edge when Johan was out of his sight.

_He’s probably been following me to bathroom every time since_ , the boy thought.

“You could always take me to a doctor to get checked out,” the boy said quietly. Johan knew the response that was about to come.

Bane of course knew Bruce was still looking for the boy. Bruce himself had promised Johan that he would find him once Bane took the boy from Gotham. With only three months since the events in September, Bane knew the three of them had to lay as low as possible. On top of the Batman looking for them, the boy was residing with two men who had to be on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list. Not that the boy could be sure of that – Bane forbid him from using a computer or phone, let alone any device that could allow him access to the internet.

All of this meant Johan was unable to get professional medical help. If the boy became a patient in a physician’s office or went to a nearby hospital for an ER visit that would mean some form of documentation. That documentation would then lead to an electronic trail, one that a tech savvy Bruce could surely follow. The vigilante was sure to have had algorithms built into the Bat Computer to sift out information that could lead to the boy.

Not that Johan was entirely without some treatment, as evidenced by Barsad helping when the boy had his seizure. Barsad must have had some medical training in a past life but it still wasn’t enough, or at least not enough for preventative treatment. There could be no CT scan or MRI of the boy’s head to investigate his seizure. There was no lab to run the boy’s bloodwork, which would undoubtably reveal untold damage being done by the nanomachines.

Johan continued, “At least they could run some tests. You know, just to check that I don’t need a transfusion from all the blood I’m pissing out.”

Bane’s grip on the boy tightened ever so slightly. “That would be…unwise.”

Johan chuckled bitterly to Bane’s response. “Tell yourself that when I’m on dialysis,” the boy spat. Johan felt himself getting angry, his cheeks were flushing with heat and color. “You can’t fuck me when I’m in a coma as my body slowly kills itself.”

“Careful, Johan,” Bane said quietly, his hand pressing down with more pressure on the boy’s shoulder. He slowly lowered his head down to the boy’s face, his mouth breathing warm air into Johan’s ear. “How quickly you forget you are mine, body and soul. You have agreed to give all of yourself to me. Willingly. Your language and tone are not appreciated.”

The boy turned his head so his golden eyes were level with the man’s gray gaze. “I can’t give you anything if I’m dead.”

Bane’s gray eyes darted over the boy’s face, no doubt taking in the dark circles under the once bright eyes and Johan’s now leaner face. The man then placed his lips on the boy’s, kissing Johan softly. Johan was still getting used to the feeling of man's lips now that he no longer needed the mask. The boy allowed the man entry to deepen the kiss, both of them taking pleasure in the lazy but efficient movements of their lips and tongues. The boy felt his anger ebbing as Bane’s lips moved from his mouth to his jaw and then his neck. Johan sighed as Bane ended his ministrations and stood back up to his full height. The man gave the boy’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. The man’s gray eyes became apologetic and he brought up his other hand and cupped the boy’s face.

“I am not trying to cause you harm, my flower,” the man said in a way that Johan assumed was an apology of some sort. “I will not let your current affliction take you from this life or from me. Only I reserve that right.”

“Um…” Johan said dumbly. “Okay?” The statement was both unsettling and romantic at the same time. The boy didn’t know what to say in response. The sides of Bane’s disfigured mouth formed into a smile once more.

“Now come,” the man said as he took both hands off of Johan and walked the other direction down the hallway. “Barsad has made our evening meal.”

The boy wasn’t hungry but followed the large man anyway.

***

That evening Johan and Bane were in bed together. The cabin was cold but the fireplace on the ground floor meant that heat rose to the second level where the bedrooms were located. Bane had a large bed in their room that the boy guessed to have been a King size. Bane’s room was sparse of much other furnishings save for a dresser and bedside table, but he did have an ample amount of blankets and pillows on the bed that made Johan think of Bane as some sort of fearsome bear sleeping in a soft, fluffy cave.

No longer did they have sex every day. Not like when Johan was Bane’s prisoner in Gotham.

Johan was thankful for the reprieve. He told the mercenary one day at the cabin, “You were relentless, you know that?” That day in particular had been a difficult day when the boy had a fever of 103.4F and had spent the day vomiting up anything Barsad had cooked, no matter how bland it was. He had been laying on Bane’s bed, the man giving him some water to sip which finally had stayed down.

Bane had put his hand on the boy’s forehead to see if the fever had broken. He looked the boy over and said, “How am I supposed to have sex with an invalid? I can take no pleasure in that.”

“How noble. I should have faked being sick before,” Johan said with a small smile. Bane had only grunted in response.

On days when the boy felt quite ill due to the nanos, the man let him be. On days the boy felt well they did not always have penetrative sex either. Now that the nanomachines were no more, if the boy’s entrance was torn it would take days for the boy to heal and be able to tolerate penetrative sex. In order to save the boy too much discomfort, Bane only insisted on penetration one to two times a week. The other days, when Johan was well enough, were dedicated to oral sex or Bane fucking his dick between the boy’s thighs.

Tonight, the man wanted penetrative sex from the boy. Bane was naked and sitting against the sturdy wooden headboard. The boy was naked as well with his back leaning against the man’s wide chest. The man had three of his thick fingers inside of the boy and was pushing them in and out, the fingers covered with an ample amount of lubricant. Bane was moving the fingers slowly, careful not to tear Johan.

The man’s fingers were brushing against Johan’s insides in a spot that made the boy let out a soft whine. Bane put his free arm around the boy’s chest to hold him in place as he began to move the fingers a bit faster. Johan moaned some more as the fingers continued to stimulate him. The boy’s erection was already full and leaking. Bane’s own erection was throbbing, waiting to be able to enter the boy.

When the boy’s breathing began to quicken and he was nearing his release, Bane kept his fingers inside and reached down with the hand that had been holding the boy and began to pump Johan’s penis. The dual stimulation of the man’s fingers and warm hand on his cock made the boy cry out and come, the release spraying over the bed sheets and Bane’s legs.

Johan was still breathing fast and was resting his head on Bane’s shoulder, his head turned to the side in his post-orgasmic state. Bane took the lubricant from the bedside table with his free hand and slathered his member in anticipation of penetration. The man removed his fingers from inside the boy and grabbed Johan’s hair, fisting a tuft of the light brunette locks. Bane turned the boy’s head and kissed him urgently, moving his tongue as far into the boy’s mouth as Johan could allow.

As they were kissing, he lifted Johan’s hips up and guided his sizable erection to the boy’s hole. Bane pushed his penis inside a little to make sure it would not move out of place, then pushed Johan down slowly onto his cock. They were still kissing as the boy let out another moan into the man’s mouth. The boy suddenly stopped moving his lips as his lithe body moved in a wince.

“Bane,” the boy strained to speak, his breathing rapid. “Slower.”

“Yes, my flower.” The man could see the wetness on Johan’s face as he tried to tolerate Bane’s wide girth being pushed inside.

Bane stopped completely, letting Johan adjust. He waited until Johan began moving himself down on the huge cock. The man waited, not daring to injure the boy. After Bane tolerated a few moments that seemed to last a lifetime, the boy was able to fit the entire length of Bane’s member inside of him. Johan stopped and didn’t move, adjusting to the size. It had been almost week’s time since Johan had tolerated penetration. The boy needed a moment to accommodate the full size.

Johan then turned his head and whispered to the man, “Go.”

Bane began thrusting while holding Johan in place. The boy was still on top and at the man’s mercy to his pounding. The boy whined again as an equal amount of pleasure and pain took over him. Bane’s huge penis was hitting the boy in the right spot but the size of the man’s cock was still uncomfortable. Johan fisted the bedsheets beside him and waited for it to be over.

The mercenary continued to push into the boy, the movements becoming frantic. Beads of sweat began to pour off Johan as he tolerated the servicing of Bane’s huge member.

_Please be close_ , the boy wished to himself. _God it hurts…_

As if on cue Bane moaned loudly. His ejaculate emptied into Johan’s hole and began to leak out. The man grasped Johan tightly then let go, completely releasing the boy and rolling to his side while breathing quickly. Johan let Bane release him and turned onto the opposite side of the bed. Come was still leaking out from the boy’s hole. The boy wiped the sweat from his brow on his pillow case.

Both man and boy were silent for quite some time. Johan’s entrance was still sore even after Bane’s careful stretching and preparations. The man had been more mindful since September and the destruction of the nanos; there had been no forceful sex session without preparations. But no matter the steps beforehand, Johan still could not say he enjoyed the penetration.

_Whatever we try_ , the boy thought, _we’re just not size compatible_.

Johan could feel Bane starting to settle next to him – Bane was nestling himself in the covers of the large bed. The man was still facing the opposite side of the bed when he spoke.

“Did you not feel pleasure, Johan?”

Johan waited a second. “I did.”

Bane also took a moment to respond. “Your body had a release. Due to my fingers.”

The boy’s face flushed. Not too long ago they had both discovered that Johan cold come from the man’s calloused and wide fingers. With careful preparation, of course.

“I did come,” the boy said.

“But you did not like me claiming you?” the man asked. He turned back over and put a large hand over Johan’s torso, drawing the boy closer until Bane’s bigger body was encapsulating Johan’s smaller figure.

The boy sighed. “I’ve told you before. Your dick is too big.”

“Most would not find that a problem.”

“Well I do,” said Johan in frustration. “Could we only do once every other week or something? I still get a little torn pretty much every time. I’m probably bleeding right now.”

“Hush now,” Bane said. “I am tired. You used to report that I was not a…thoughtful lover. I make you orgasm yet you still find fault.”

It was not too long after when Johan sensed Bane’s breath slow and the sounds of soft snores from the man reached his ears.

The boy let the man hold him close and bathed in the warmth of the body heat. It was true that Bane had come a long way in their lovemaking journey. The man made sure the boy had a release at least once during their sessions. This was unheard of when the boy had been his prisoner. But in the mercenary’s mind, sex without shoving his penis into Johan’s entrance was not true sex. Bane therefore would not let them go over a week without making love in that manner.

Johan usually didn’t say anything against this. He knew this arrangement was better than what they had in Gotham. Back then, Johan would get fucked every single night without an orgasm in sight. Back then Bane took only pleasure and did not account for the boy's satisfaction in their arrangement.

_Until now_ , thought the boy.

Now that Bane thought of the boy as an equal - “body and soul” - he made sure to pleasure Johan which Bane had not even considered previously. All of this made the boy’s head spin. But it did make him miss someone...

Johan was usually awake at night past Bane falling asleep. He often found himself on his back staring at the ceiling of the cabin, his eyes tracing the support beams.

_No stucco_ , he though wistfully. _Not like at Gordon's house_.

Johan tried to push Gotham out of his mind. He knew his home was with Bane now. The boy knew Bane would kill those he cared for if he ever attempted to leave. He thought of Bane with his hands around Gordon's neck that night in the Batcave under the docks. Bane had been slowly squeezing his meaty grip as the life was slowly slipping away from the Commissioner...

_Stop_ , the boy chastised himself. _Stop thinking about that_. _Gordon is alive. He's better off with me being gone. I put him in danger._

So he tried to push all thoughts of his past life out of his mind. Memories of Gordon or Lucius or Alfred or...

_Bruce_.

Bane let out a soft snore next to him. The boy could tell by the cadence of his breathing he was in a deep slumber.

_God I miss Bruce_ , the boy thought as the large man’s warm arms wrapped around him. Johan stared at the wooden boards of the bedroom walls. He thought of Bruce and all forms of him: The Batman, the playboy, the vigilante, the billionaire, the Dark Knight.

_What is he doing now?_ thought Johan. _Does he forgive me for what I had to do?_

Johan felt his eyes grow heavy, his breathing slowing to a tempo with Bane's. As he drifted off he thought of the green eyes and smile he missed so dearly.


	2. Chapter 2

_Gotham City, 3 years ago_

Johan and Bruce were perched on the roof of an office complex across from the warehouse. They had arrived a little before midnight. It was like a ghost town this time of night and the streets were empty of pedestrians or cars. The building looming in front of them had red neon lights that read “Frozen Goods Surplus”. The letter “O” was malfunctioning and kept blinking on and off in a manner that irked the boy.

_Nice place_ , the boy thought with sarcasm as he looked at the brick walls which were sorely in need of a power wash.

It was a breezy night and they were high up enough to catch the gusts of wind. Johan was donned in his Shadow garb - the dark stealth suit with knitted Kevlar fibers and full head mask. To his side Bruce had on the cape and cowl, a new model given to the man by Lucius Fox. The head scientist at Wayne Tech R&D had been able to make Bruce’s suit joints more flexible without compromising protection. Bruce liked it because he was able to do more combat moves than in the previous suits which were bulkier.

_I can still outmaneuver the Bat_ , Johan thought with a smile. _Most of the time_.

Both vigilantes were looking at the building across the street. The window of the conference room was still illuminated. The glass windows were frosted so they couldn’t see directly inside but the duo could make out some shadows moving.

“How long have they been in there now?” the boy asked quietly. They had watched as Roland Daggett had entered the building to meet with the managers of his factories and warehouses. Six men in total.

Bruce glanced down and checked his wrist display. “20 minutes.” The man’s eyes went right back to studying the building. He was also listening to a feed of audio in his cowl.

_So serious_ , Johan mused. “Daggett must be freaking out. He’s probably screaming his head off at his lackeys right now.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “He is rattled because of the break-ins. He’s added two bodyguards for 24 hour protection. No mention of the money laundering yet. We need them to give up something more."

Roland Daggett was a Gotham business man. It was also no secret he was corrupt. On paper he was squeaky clean but it was known in most crime circles that he mingled with the mob to earn a big chunk of his income. He owned factories and warehouses all over the city that employed only certain contractors and sold goods to particular buyers. Of course, there was always a little extra money thrown in that couldn’t be accounted for. And that dirty money made between these dealings was cleaned by Daggett’s accountants.

Trouble struck for Daggett this week when two of his factories were robbed at night. A private security guard employed by him had even been killed. The perpetrator had stolen the dirty money – still waiting to be cleaned – from safes at each factory. The strange part was that the burglarized safes had giant hand impressions on them. Whoever the assailant was, he hadn’t needed the combinations - he had _used his hands_ to open the strongboxes. This meeting with Daggett and his men tonight was no doubt to hash out a plan to prevent any further robberies.

For Johan and Bruce, their goal for tonight was to get recordings of the meeting from a bug they had placed on the conference room window. Then, if they caught enough evidence on audio of the money laundering scheme, the duo would catch the group unawares and turn them into the police.

That was when Johan’s golden eyes caught movement on the right side of the building. Even though it was a gloomy night with only a sliver moonlight, the nanomachines focused his vision. His eyes honed in on a tall figure with a wide brim hat in a long coat.

_Not conspicuous at all_ , thought the boy. Bruce had noticed the newcomer as well. Both vigilantes stayed still on the roof, watching the man below.

The mysterious individual was standing by a security door that required a key card to open. The dark figure stared at the door for a moment, unmoving. Then, he raised his arm up on the side facing Johan and Bruce. The figure’s hand began to move.

_What the hell?_ Johan thought. To the boy’s side Bruce was silent, the vigilante’s eyes widening at the sight below.

It was quick, but Johan was able to view everything. The mysterious figure’s hand became at least five times its normal size, tendrils of what seemed to be flesh began swirling about until the hand changed shape. Except the new shape wasn’t a hand – it was a _hammer_.

“Woah,” the boy whispered. Bruce’s eyes became narrower but he said nothing in response. _This must be the guy that robbed the safes,_ Johan realized.

The figure then raised its new hand-hammer up and slammed it down hard on the knob of the security door. There was a deafening bang and the knob shattered with the pieces scattering on the ground. It was all so loud that even on the rooftop it could be easily heard. Johan diverted his eyes to the window of the conference room – shadows were moving at hearing the commotion outside. The mystery figure hastily ripped opened the door - his hand-hammer now just a hand - and slipped into the building.

“The plan’s changed,” the Batman whispered. “We need to neutralize that new threat. Go find Daggett and make sure he doesn’t slip away. Or get killed.”

Bruce stood on the roof’s ledge and readied his grappling hook. He shot the gadget so that it caught on a ledge of the warehouse. “Take the left, Shadow. Go through the main entrance, it should be clear.” He tilted his cowl to the now-broken security door. “I’ll follow our new friend.”

“Got it,” Johan said. “And Bats, be careful. That was…weird.”

Bruce’s green eyes met the boy’s gold. The man said nothing. _He’s_ _always so serious on patrol_ , Johan thought. The man simply nodded and jumped off the ledge, led away by the grappling hook as the black cape billowed behind.

Johan watched as Bruce disappeared inside the building before moving. The boy gracefully leapt off the edge of the roof and caught himself on a streetlight below. He grabbed the horizontal metal of the light pole and swung around it fully to gain momentum before flinging himself into the air. He soared high above the street and at the moment his feet were going to touch the ground he tucked his body into itself and rolled onto the sidewalk. He completed one full tumble before rising smoothy in front of the building.

_Perfect ten_ , he thought to himself.

He edged along the side of the dirty brick wall and approached the front door. As he reached the entrance, he put his head close to the door and listened. He heard nothing.

Johan grabbed the door handle that – like the one the mysterious figure entered - also required a key card to open. He put a firm grip on the handle and yanked down, using his augmented strength from the nanomachines. The entire handle and fitting broke away from the door and the screws clattered on the sidewalk. Johan paused and waited. Still no noise from inside.

He carefully pushed the door open to make sure it didn’t creak too much. Once in, Johan saw he was in a lobby with dingy floors. The overhead lights were on from when Daggett and his men entered earlier. The boy had memorized the building layout this afternoon so he was able to quickly make his way to the main warehouse floor.

When he approached the area he heard voices. He snuck through the swinging doors and took cover behind a forklift. The main room was giant, almost the size of a football field. There were rows upon rows freezers filled with seafood, beef, chicken, and vegetables. It was a mazelike space that had numbers and letters on the ends of each row to navigate. Johan peeked out the side of the forklift and saw the source of the voices.

From the boy’s position the conference room was about fifty feet away. The men inside could be seen through a clear glass wall from this viewpoint. There was a fourteen-chair table and Daggett was seated at the head. The criminal was dressed in a gaudy designer suit that was no doubt purchased with mob money. There were two of his thugs, one on each side of him, that the boy assumed to be armed.

_Bruce was right_ , Johan thought as he looked Daggett over. _He is rattled_.

Three of his other men were gone, presumably having left to investigate the noise from the stranger’s break-in. They must have been taking too long since Daggett seemed to be fidgety and glancing at the door to conference room, assumedly looking to see if his men were returning.

Johan was at the ready to ambush Daggett and his men. He needed to get to them before that creep from outside started any trouble. He got into a crouching stance and started to sprint at full speed to the conference room door.

He made it five paces.

A black shape flew through the air and crashed into the glass wall of the room with Daggett, breaking straight through and landing on the middle of the large table.

_Bruce!_ Johan thought in disbelief. _What the fuck?_ Batman hadn’t jumped through the glass - he had been _thrown_.

The boy continued running. He saw that Bruce was rolling himself onto the ground behind the far side of the table. Daggett had been so startled that he fell backwards from his leather chair and tripped one of his goons in the process. The other thug still standing was starting to pull his handgun out but was too slow – Bruce was already hurling a Batarang that made contact with the guy’s hand. The goon let out a shrill cry and the boy saw some blood spray on the wall as he dropped the gun.

Johan was now close enough to the conference room. He jumped to go through the hole in the glass wall. The boy glanced to his side while midair and saw the same figure that had been outside. He was coming towards them.

_That guy must have thrown the Bats_ , Johan realized. And the figure’s hand was a huge hammer – _again_. Johan still couldn’t make out his face since he still had on the damn hat. The boy landed on the conference table and rolled behind it. He came to a stop next to Bruce so they were both covered by the table, a barrier between them and Daggett's men.

“Hey,” Johan greeted Batman with a small wave. “Our new friend is coming this way.”

Bruce’s mouth tightened as the boy looked at him. The man looked rough - he had a deep gash on his cheekbone that must have been sliced by the glass. His nose was also bleeding, _a lot_. The duo glanced to the side and saw Daggett with his two bodyguards swiftly exiting the room. They weren't interested in taking on the vigilantes.

“They’re headed right towards that weirdo,” Johan said.

“Move. _Now_ ,” directed Batman.

Both of them made it to the door in time to see Daggett’s two bodyguards soar in the air past them, almost like out of a comic book. The two thugs slammed into a pile of wooden pallets and collapsed on top of each other. The boy followed Batman out of the room and looked to where the men had come from.

Daggett was being hoisted into the air from his neck by the hand of...something. Something strange.

The man in the coat and hat was no longer there. Instead, it was a _monster_. It wasn’t a human per se, but there was definitively _something_ human about it. It had legs, arms, a torso, and a bulbous head. Daggett was flailing his legs and holding onto the thick hand of the humanoid shape, trying not to choke. The gargantuan creature had to be at least seven feet tall with deep-set yellow eyes in its dome of a head. And its _skin_ \- the creature’s orange-y flesh seemed to be almost moving, like it was continuously dripping and rippling at the same time.

Johan looked on in wonder. He thought, _What the hell is this thing? A science experiment gone wrong?_

Bruce was standing next to the boy watching the scene unfold. Daggett looked over hurriedly, waving one arm desperately at them.

“Please,” he criminal gurgled, “help me.”

The human-like figure then spoke. “Help?” it replied in a deep baritone. “Like you _helped_ _me_ Daggett?”

Johan’s eyes widened. _It talks._

The gooey, darkly jaundiced skin of the figure became alive. The flesh slithered in a wave from its shoulder and rolled its way down the arm holding the hanging man captive. The gooey skin encapsulated Daggett’s head in a solid ball. Daggett would no longer be able to breath – this monster was trying to suffocate its prey.

“Get Daggett,” Bruce told the boy. The Batman thew a small ball from his utility belt at the creature.

Johan jolted forward just as the smoke bomb erupted right on top of one of the huge, yellow eyes of the creature. The giant figure shrank back to avoid the fumes just as Johan held his breath and reached out for Daggett’s midsection. The boy planted his feet on the ground and he pulled hard on the crook’s waist to break the man’s head from the monster’s grasp. The puddy-like material didn’t budge, as if once becoming a shape, it turned to stone.

The boy placed a strong punch into the ball of flesh but his fist hit a hard shell. He tried once more. This time, the flesh had softened and the boy’s hand got sucked into the moving sludge. The boy groaned in exertion as he tugged but couldn’t break free. Johan was stuck. To his side, Daggett’s legs were barely moving now.

_Don’t die on me, asshole_ , thought the boy.

Bruce appeared above the humanoid now, about to land a kick on the monster’s domed head. From the back of the creature a hump of the fleshy ooze grew out of itself, as if having a life of its own, and extended in the air towards the Batman. The pole of ooze pushed Batman back into the air and pinned him to the adjacent wall where it kept bunching up against the vigilante, an endless puddle growing bigger and wider over Bruce’s hips and torso.

The monster started chuckling. “You boys shoulda stayed outta this,” he growled menacingly. “This is between me and Daggett.”

Batman’s legs and arms were already covered as the evermoving flesh starting creeping towards his neck, getting closer to the vigilante’s face. Bruce was trapped now, too. Johan again tried to break free but the goo began to move up his arm and was almost at his shoulder.

_Oh shit_ , the boy thought.

“Shadow,” Bruce called in a strained voice. Johan watched as the man’s eyes moved upwards. The boy followed Bruce’s gaze until he saw it above.

_Fire sprinklers._ The warehouse had a system of overhead pipes that ran above the aisles of the vast room.

By the time Johan looked back to Bruce, the man’s face was covered in the sludge.

_I need to hurry_ , Johan thought.

The boy himself was starting to be enveloped, the pulsating flesh now past his shoulder and taking over his upper back. Daggett, meanwhile, was hanging by his still-smothered head, legs swinging like a man already dead.

_Fuck_ , Johan thought. The boy looked over and saw the enormous, yellow eyes staring at him.

The monster’s wide, ugly mouth morphed into what could only be described as a mutated smile.

It spoke to the boy, “Get ready for lights out, punk.”

That’s when it happened.

The boy’s golden eyes turned silver. Johan’s face became devoid of emotion and stared blankly back at the creature’s yellow sockets. With a feat of strength impossible for a normal human, Johan proceeded to pull his arm away with supernatural force. He ripped his entire arm from the monster’s vice-like skin with a slurping _POP_. The boy rolled away just as a fleshy pointed tip came rushing at him from the monster’s thigh. Johan was able to dodge at the last moment as the sharp edge of the monster’s appendage crunched into the concrete of the warehouse floor, barely missing the boy’s feet.

The boy bolted to the side and flipped through the air to avoid another devastating blow from the creature’s hand hammer. The monster missed and blew another crater into the floor with its huge appendage. One more back flip landed Johan within reach of his destination: a hard hat mounted on the wall. He deftly scooped it up and chucked it upward, directly hitting one of the fire sprinklers above the fleshy monster. The hard hat slammed into the downward spout.

Water immediately erupted from the damaged nozzle. The freezing downpour fell on the monster and the boy from the pipe above.

“Agh!” the creature spat in surprise and took a step back. The sludge-like skin receded slightly around Batman and the boy caught a glimpse of the utility belt.

Johan sprinted forward, dove onto the wet floor, and slid between the monster’s legs. He made it to his partner and yanked on the Batman’s exposed belt until is sprang loose from the muck. The boy was reaching into the belt’s pouches when his foot was grabbed and he was wrenched to the floor by a goo-hand. He was being pulled closer to the monster as the low-pitched voiced laughed again.

“Nice try, kid,” he boomed as the boy was slowly being absorbed into the monster’s torso. “Water doesn’t hurt me.”

Johan’s silver eyes didn’t break eye contact with the creature. The boy lifted his arm up and drove an object down into the thick flesh.

An electric current burst out over the monster’s skin. The flesh began to spasm and writhe all around the monster. The mutated mouth cried out in agony as all the extensions of moving skin snapped back into its main body mass. Daggett’s body thumped to the floor as his head was released. Bruce slumped down against the wall, freed from his sludge prison. The boy saw as Bruce took in jagged gasps of air.

The monster kept yelling as the electric taser the boy had embedded continued emitting high volts of power. Only then did the boy’s silver eyes turn back to their normal golden hue. The boy shook his head as the water was beating down on him from above. His stealth suit was completely soaked through.

That was when Johan saw it: the figure started to change shape entirely. The creature morphed into the shape of Daggett, who was still motionless on the floor.

_The hell?_ Johan thought in disbelief. He looked down just to make sure the real Daggett was still there. With relief the boy saw the unconscious criminal was breathing now. But the boy was still shocked. _This thing even has the same gaudy suit Daggett is wearing now...._

But it didn’t stop there. Still screaming in horrific pain, it transformed into the mysterious character from earlier, with the wide hat and duster coat.

It dawned on the boy. _So this thing and the guy from outside are one and the same? It’s like a shape shifter…_

Then the creature quickly swirled into a vision of Batman, cape and cowl included. It was all so surreal to the boy.

That was the final form before the entire figure squeezed into a round blob and then collapsed into a mucky puddle on the ground. There was no more movement that the boy could see, only flickers of electricity jumping around the puddle. The taser lay in the middle of the now rigid muck.

“We weren’t prepared,” the boy heard next to him. Bruce had appeared beside him and had been watching the spectacle.

Johan saw the blood from Bruce’s facial gash run down the man’s face as it mixed with the watery downpour. Bruce was still breathing heavily from the ordeal

“You okay?” the boy asked.

“Fine,” Bruce said. He placed a hand on Johan’s shoulder and lightly squeezed. “That was quick thinking.”

Johan shook his head again. He couldn’t remember anything that happened once Bruce had been trapped by the monster. It was a blur.

_The nanomachines_ , he realized. _The nanos were in control, not me…_

The boy looked down at his gloved hands. There were some trace pieces of the monster’s sticky skin that had been left behind. He picked some off and rubbed it between his thumb and pointer finger.

“It’s different when it’s not moving. Looks kind of like…” the boy started as he was squinting.

“…Clay,” Bruce finished. “I’ll analyze this in the lab.”

Sirens could be heard growing louder outside. Bruce was listening to the GCPD radio frequency he had inside the cowl. He pressed a button on his wrist communicator.

“Gordon,” the Batman rasped. “It’s me. Shadow and I are at Daggett’s warehouse.”

Johan waited while Batman listened to the Commissioner’s response. “We’ll be here,” Batman said after a few moments. He turned to the boy. “Gordon is on his way. He wants to know what happened.”

The boy looked back to the broken pallets where Daggett’s two body guards were still unconscious.

“What happened to the other three guys?”

The man paused. “Dead. That… _thing_ killed them before I could stop it.”

“There was nothing you could have done, Bats. Sounds like whatever that thing was, he had a vendetta against Daggett.”

The Batman’s jaw tensed. The man said nothing. The sirens soon became even louder, and they heard the sound of doors being opened and closed. The cops had arrived.

Bruce’s green eyes looked at the boy as if he could see Johan’s face through the head mask. “Let’s go home after this. It’s been enough for one night.”

Johan gave Bruce a salute “Aye aye, Bats.”

Both of them watched the puddle on the floor diligently until the GCPD walked into the warehouse. Just to make sure it didn’t slip away.

***

Two hours later, the man and boy were in the shower. They had returned to the penthouse, sweaty and grimy from fighting the monster whom the boy had dubbed “Man of Clay”. The name was a work in progress. Bruce hadn’t found it amusing.

“I was almost asphyxiated by that thing,” the man said sourly as he scrubbed his chest with soap.

When they had gotten back to the penthouse, Alfred did his routine post-patrol physical. Johan was unscathed, having dodged all of the hits the creature had doled out. Batman, however, wasn’t so lucky. The gash on Bruce’s face from being thrown through the glass wall had been deep enough to require stiches. On the bright side, Alfred deemed that Bruce’s nose was not broken, despite the amount of blood that had gushed out at the warehouse. The boy had sat with an amused look on his face, watching as Bruce tried to brush off Alfred’s careful ministrations as his facial wound was cleaned and sutured.

“Please, Master Bruce, will you sit still?” the weary butler had asked.

“I’m not a child, Alfred.”

The butler raised an eyebrow. “Of course, sir.”

Johan had laughed out loud. The look Bruce gave him in response made him laugh even louder.

The warm shower was a welcome reprieve after being doused by the frigid water at the warehouse. Johan was busy running his hands up and down the man’s tense back. They let the rainfall shower pull the cold from their tired bones.

Johan smirked as he poked Bruce in the ribs. “Don’t be upset I had to save your ass, old man.”

Bruce, to no surprise to the boy, said nothing.

The boy enjoyed the comfortable silence as he massaged Bruce’s muscular back. There were so many tiny scars from bullets or stab wounds that were scattered over the man. Johan loved to trace his fingers over them and run his nails lightly down the vigilante’s back, scraping the skin ever so tenderly. The boy could feel Bruce shudder.

Bruce turned around and looked at the boy. Johan was about six inches smaller than Bruce so the man had to tilt his head down. The boy looked at the man’s green eyes, his heart beating faster now. The man put a callous hand gently on Johan’s face. He placed a soft kiss on the boy’s lips. The pupils inside the man’s green eyes were dilated.

“Thank you,” Bruce said softly, his voice low and breathy. “For saving my old ass.”

Johan didn’t believe it. The Batman _never_ said thank you.

_He must have hit his head and didn’t tell Alfred_ , the boy thought as he smiled in response to Bruce’s statement.

The man grabbed the boy’s hips and completely lifted Johan off the shower tiles. He moved to the side and leaned Johan’s back on the slick shower wall, the hot water running down from above. Bruce continued to hold up the boy as they started kissing in earnest. Johan was careful not to brush against the man’s newly placed stitches. The boy put his arms around the man’s shoulders and pulled him closer, wrapping his legs around Bruce’s hips. They both fought for control of the kiss, playfully nipping at each other’s lips and mashing their tongues together. Johan could feel Bruce’s length full harden against his thigh. Johan, for his part, had been hard after the first kiss.

Bruce slowed the kiss and stared at Johan, his eyes raking over the boy’s face.

“Joe…” the man began quietly. “Do you want to?”

Johan looked at the man. His groin felt like it was going to burst from waiting. “ _Yes_ , Bruce.” He placed a hungry kiss on to the man’s lips. His golden eyes had a starving look at this point.

“Fuck me.”

The man, still holding up the boy, took the lubricant from the shower shelf next to them. He covered two fingers and began entering the boy’s tight hole. Johan sighed. It felt good. They continued kissing as Bruce began scissoring his fingers to loosen up the boy’s muscles. The boy was almost crazy with need at this point. He began bucking his hips.

“ _Bruce_ ,” the boy moaned. “C’mon, hurry up.”

Always the thorough one, Bruce took another minute to get the boy ready. When he finally took his fingers out, the boy was ready to scream out in frustration. Bruce readied his length and slowly pushed into the boy. Johan sighed with pleasure as Bruce entered him. The feeling was wonderful. The boy placed his head against the cool tile of the shower wall, closing his eyes at the sensation. He craved the feeling of Bruce’s dick inside of him.

Bruce held firmly onto Johan as he pumped into the boy. Both man and boy relished the feeling of each other, holding tightly to one another as they shared in the bliss between them. Johan was getting closer. Somehow the man knew because he grabbed the boy’s dick with his calloused hand and began stroking in time with his thrusts. The sounds coming from the boy were obscene at this point, moans and whispers of _yes_ leaving his mouth.

At the moment of his release, the boy let out a groan of pure relief and grabbed Bruce’s brunette hair in his fists. He kissed Bruce as the man came sooner after, letting out a guttural sound in the boy’s mouth.

Bruce still held the boy up for a few more moments, his cock softening inside. He then gently let Johan down and kept an arm around the boy to steady him as the circulation went back into Johan’s legs.

“Now _that_ ,” the boy said as stretched out his back and shoulders, “was a great thank you.”

Johan looked up at Bruce and saw the man had a smile on his face. _God I love that smile_ , thought the boy.

They both proceeded to rinse off the sex from their bodies and Bruce turned the water off by tapping the sensor by the shower door. They both toweled off and got into bed. The clock on Bruce’s nightstand read “03:00AM” in glowing blue numbers. Bruce had a few hours of sleep before he had to be at Wayne Enterprises. This made Johan think of something…

“What are you going to tell the board members tomorrow when you show up with your face looking like that?”

The boy could hear Bruce rustling next to him. “That I tripped. They already think I’m clumsy enough.”

“And what will you say you tripped _into_?”

Bruce did a mock scoff and started talking in the airhead voice he only used for his "Gotham Playboy" persona: “It was a terrible ordeal! You see I tripped and scraped my face on the Dale Chihuly glass sculpture I have at the penthouse. I inadvertently broke off a piece of it in the process which is quite saddening. You see, I purchased it for $200,000 at a charity fundraiser for Childhood Cancer in Chicago last year. Such a good cause! Now I’ll have to pay the artist himself to fly out from his studio in Seattle to Gotham in order to fix it. All very tedious business.”

“Jeez,” Johan said in disbelief. “You are _good_.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Montana, December, Back to Present Day_

Johan awoke and instantly felt nauseous; he promptly leaned over and vomited over the side of the bed. Even in the dark he was able to aim the vomit into the bucket he kept on the floor. He had lots of practice lately.

The boy heaved a few more times until his stomach was empty. He grabbed the glass of water from the bedside table and took a sip to rinse out the tang of bile from his mouth. He spat that into the bucket, too. The boy was surprised Bane hadn’t rustled at the sound of his retching; he looked over to find the side of the bed empty.

_Strange_ , he thought. Bane wasn’t there.

Johan’s internal clock told him he hadn’t been asleep long. He sat up and rubbed his eyes in an effort to wake himself. His lithe body shivered in the cold air of the cabin. He felt the dampness of the mattress sheet under him.

_Night sweats again_ , Johan thought. _And a dream about fucking Clayface of all people._

The boy slid his legs over the side of the bed and turned on the nearby lamp. He hobbled to a standing position, keeping a firm grip on the bedside table for support. Once he gained his bearings he shuffled to the dresser and put on a pair of sweatpants and a loose sweater. Johan grabbed the pail of foul-smelling vomit and cracked open the door of their bedroom to peek outside.

The upper hallway was dark save for a small nightlight on a wall outlet. Johan opened the door fully and quietly tip-toed his bare feet along the chilly wooden floor. He stopped outside of Barsad’s room. The door was ajar and Johan didn’t see the man in bed.

Johan’s brows creased together. _I wonder what they’re up to…_

There was no bathroom upstairs so Johan had to traverse the staircase down. The boy held onto the railing as he started his descent, making sure to take his time. At the bottom he saw a rectangle of light streaming across the hallway - it was coming from the kitchen. The boy ceased his movement and listened: he could hear the sounds of metal and glass clinking. There was a shadow moving back and forth across the ray of light that was cast onto the floor. His ears could barely make out Barsad’s quiet voice murmuring, but it wasn’t in English. Without the nanos the boy couldn’t discern the hushed words.

“Johan,” Bane’s deep voice rumbled so abruptly that the boy almost dropped the bucket of puke. Johan thought he heard a strained quality as the man spoke his name.

“Come here,” the man requested. “Stop your hiding in the shadows, _Shadow_.”

_Very funny_ , the boy thought dryly. To Johan, being called “Shadow” felt like a previous life, a life that had never been his. Johan let out a sigh _._

The boy obeyed the mercenary’s command and walked towards the entryway of the kitchen. He dropped the bucket off at the door of the bathroom and made a mental note to flush the brown goop down the toilet on his way back to bed. The boy peered around the opening of the kitchen.

Bane was sitting at the table where they took their meals; he was wearing sweatpants but his torso was bare. There was a slew of medical equipment on the table: glass vials, needles, syringes, intravenous tubing, medicine tablets. Barsad was carefully sucking some medication from a vial as his hand deftly pulled back the plunger of a syringe. Barsad then drew the needle out and pushed up the excess air, tapping the top of the syringe to expel the unwanted bubbles. The smaller man’s drowsy-like gaze was focused and he performed the motions with practiced dexterity.

Johan turned his gold eyes to Bane and saw the mercenary was already watching him. The boy began to fidget under the watchful gray eyes. Bane’s face looked fatigued and his jaw was clenched. The boy knew that face well: Bane was in pain.

“You weren’t in bed,” the boy blurted.

Bane’s lips curled into a tight smile and returned to watching Barsad’s skilled hands.

“Indeed, I was not,” he said with obvious exhaustion.

Barsad proceeded to inject the medication from the syringe into the intravenous tubing. The boy followed the tubing as it coiled up Bane’s trunk and into the circular Port-a-Cath that was visible under the skin on the man’s right chest. Barsad finished the injection and emptied the syringe into a sharp disposal container. The smaller man then picked up the micro-analgesic pump attached to the intravenous tubing being fed into the implanted port; he replaced the cartridge inside with a refilled cylinder. The smaller man put the cartridge in Bane’s large palm and curled Bane’s thick fingers around it.

“There you are, _sadiq_ ,” Barsad said in an almost whisper.

Barsad squeezed Bane’s hand for a moment before letting go and beginning to clean up his work station. Johan felt a tightening in his gut at seeing the ease and comfort the two men shared between them. The whole scene had unfolded while Joan had remained in the entrance to the room. The boy had been an outsider looking in, an interloper watching what had just taken place. A clenching feeling in his stomach persisted that had nothing to do his vomiting episode from earlier.

_Am I…jealous?_ Johan thought both confusion and wonder. _Seriously?_

The boy rubbed his eyes for the second time this night. When he moved his hands away, Bane was suddenly standing in front of him. The man bent down to stare at the boy’s face and placed his hands on each side of the boy’s neck. Johan winced backwards in surprise.

“Calm, my flower, calm,” the man said as he started massaging Johan’s shoulders. “Why did you wake?”

“I threw up Barsad’s lamb stew. It’s waiting in the bathroom.”

Bane made a disapproving noise in his throat. “That’s the fourth meal this week you could not keep down.”

“Um,” Johan said, “Maybe?” _I can’t keep track of how many times I’ve emptied that stupid bucket._ The boy looked at Bane’s chest and stared at the implanted device that led to the intravenous narcotics in the small cassette. The cassette was now clipped to waste of his pants. “Is there something wrong with your port?”

Bane’s eyes darkened. “I awoke in…discomfort tonight. Barsad has given a breakthrough injection to assist me. He also had to increase my, shall we say, _usual_ solution.”

“Increase permanently?”

There was a long pause before Bane answered: “Let us hope that is not the case.”

The man let go of Johan’s shoulders and stood back up. Barsad was finished clearing off the table; he had put all of the medical supplies in a duffel bag. The smaller man passed by both the boy and Bane without another glance.

_The man of mystery_ , the boy thought as the air shifted when Barsad walked out of the kitchen, presumably back to his own room.

Johan heard a wet _plop_ in the bathroom and the flush of the toilet from the hallway. Barsad had emptied his bucket of vomit. The smaller man then reappeared in the kitchen and tossed the bucket at Johan’s feet unceremoniously. The sound of the hard plastic clattered in the kitchen and some wetness – no doubt leftover throw-up – splattered on Johan’s feet.

“Thanks,” Johan said dryly but Barsad had already left. The boy could hear the creak of Barsad climbing the stairs.

“Did I do something wrong?” Johan directed to the hulking mercenary.

Bane ignored the boy completely. He instead stepped to the refrigerator, took out a water bottle, and gulped down half of it in one go.

_Still so weird to see him drink_ , thought the boy as he saw the water slowly disappear from the bottle. The man swallowed one last mouthful and wiped his scarred lips with the back of his hand.

“Barsad and I are going to town tomorrow,” the man said.

The boy instantly perked up at this revelation. “You are?”

Three thoughts erupted in Johan’s mind _: Town. Outside_. _Not the cabin_.

“Can I come with you?” Johan asked. He was trying so desperately to keep the yearning out of his voice.

Bane did not reply.

But Johan _was_ desperate. For three months he had been trapped in this cabin in the woods. He was only allowed outside with direct supervision from Bane, and even then, they only walked in the direct front or back of the cabin for a few brief minutes. The last time he had felt this way was back in Gotham as Bane’s willing prisoner.

_I need a break from this place_ , Johan thought. _Just to see civilization._

Not that the nearby town of Rockbridge with a population of 1,200 was “civilization” per se when compared to the large metropolis of Gotham. But it was something.

Bane and Barsad usually did a supply-run once a month. And when they did, Johan was locked in Bane’s room for the duration. There was only one window with access to the outside from their bedroom and it was barred. For a boy with no nanomachines, there was no means of escape. Not that escape was an option.

“Please,” Johan pleaded with the man. He walked up and put his hand on Bane’s forearm. “I’m going crazy in here. I won’t try to run. Please, Bane, you can trust me.”

The man seemed to be contemplating this as he looked down at the boy.

“My flower,” the man purred. “This is not a matter of _trust_.” He stopped a moment before continuing. “It is a matter of our _safety_. If a boy was to be seen with two men it would draw attention. Word spreads like wildfire in remote areas such as this.”

“I’m not a boy, Bane. I’m at least twenty-one years old. Give or take.”

Bane smiled. “Due to Dr. Saunders and her nanomachines, you look as if you are a child of sixteen years.”

Johan chuckled at that. “Are you _trying_ to make yourself a pedophile?”

The man said nothing.

“ _Please_ ,” the boy said again, a borderline whine at this point. “What if I have a seizure while you’re gone? I can pass out, bite my tongue, and choke on my own blood.”

The boy knew he was playing dirty now. He didn’t care. Anything to get a field trip from this place was a win.

It worked. Bane started laughing, a content echo that reverberated in the kitchen.

“You are devious, my flower. I relent.” He placed a hand on Johan’s face. “You may come.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” said with relief. The boy placed a soft kiss to the palm of Bane’s hand.

The man squeezed the boy’s jaw in warning: “But you must stay in the vehicle.”

“Okay, okay, that’s fine!”

Bane nodded in approval and patted the boy’s cheek. “Let us return to bed. We must leave early. There is snow in the forecast for the afternoon.”

***

The frosty air made Johan’s face raw and numb, but that couldn’t stop the smile from blossoming on his face as he climbed into the backseat of the Subaru Outback. Rays of sun broke through the clouds and the sky above was a crisp blue. Johan scanned the horizon and saw darkness over the distant mountain range – it was the coming snow Bane spoke of last night. Bane entered the front passenger door and sat up front next to Barsad. Without a word Barsad put the SUV in gear and they were off.

Back in September, when they had arrived at the cabin for the first time, Johan had been incoherent. Bane had to carry him through the threshold since the boy could barely walk. Those early weeks at their new home had been a blur to the boy. He had brief memories of Bane spoon feeding him while he shook uncontrollably, slop dribbling down his chin. Nightmares had the boy shrieking in terror each night. One dream he remembered vividly was when he saw Ra’s al Ghul standing at the end of their bed - the villain had a gaping chest wound that had been soaking the duvet in blood.

The boy had improved since then – minus the pissing blood every day, recurrent night fevers, and once-off seizure. Now Johan was able to soak up all the surroundings he had missed in the Fall. His gold eyes roamed hungrily over the white-tipped mountains that he assumed were the Rockies. Miles of forest stretched before them as Barsad maneuvered the winding road away from the cabin. The ground was still covered with un-melted snow from the previous storm. Johan hadn’t been able to see the bare ground for weeks now. The cold snow would continue to build on top of itself as the months moved into deep winter.

“Beautiful, is it not?”

Johan looked to see Bane watching him in the rearview mirror.

“Barsad and I saw a lynx at this bend during our previous outing,” the man said as he pointed to a spot they just passed. “The fauna here can rival that of the African and Asian continents.”

“Definitely can’t see any of this in Gotham,” the boy mused aloud.

“Johan, you remain focused on that blight of a city,” Bane responded. The man gestured his arms to the vista visible through the windshield. “Wipe the decay of Gotham from your mind and look anew at what is before you.”

“Gotham was my home for years. It wasn’t _decay_ to me.”

“In time, my flower, you will see,” Bane said while staring back at Johan for a few moments. The man’s gray eyes then flicked forward to face the road. “In time.”

The boy said nothing. He leaned his forehead against the window and watched as puffs of condensation appeared below his nose on the clear glass. Johan sat up and took in a deep breath; he blew out onto the window and an opaque patch appeared. He swiped his finger across the window – he drew two wings, a head, and two pointy ears. A crude Bat.

In a few moments the white swatch of warm air on the window was gone and the boy’s doodle disappeared. He laid his head back against the window and stared outside as the enormous fir trees passed by as green smudges.

_Don’t think you’ll see this Bat signal, Bruce._

The rest of the trip passed in silence. The dirt road below turned into pavement beneath the vehicle. Johan started to see the tops of buildings further down the road. He bent forward from his back seat to get a better look. A giant wooden sign stuck up in the ground on the side of the road, like the ones Johan had seen on TV shows. It read “Rockbridge: A Clean Community” in maroon, cursive script.

There were some scattered houses amongst the landscape as they approached, mostly on ranches and farmland from what the boy could tell. Cows grazed the frozen pastures and some were eating from huge piles of hay. One farmer was mending a wire fence while his awaiting horse nearby was clothed in a blanket. A gas station came and went on their left side and there was truck stop with a Dunkin Donuts and brightly lit diner.

_This town must be near a highway then_ , Johan realized as he looked more closely at the trucks lined up in rows at the rest station. _Not the complete boonies after all._

Barsad drove through the main street in the center of town. Shops and businesses lined both sides of the road and Johan craned his neck left and right to see what was in his direct line of sight; there was a post office, grocery store, clothing boutique, antique shop, and small gym – among what he could see.

“There,” Bane said as he pointed to spot ahead.

Barsad nodded silently and pulled into a slanted parking space in front of the local feed store. The smaller man promptly exited the Subaru and closed the door. He had left the car running so that the heat was still circulating inside the vehicle. The boy followed Barsad’s steps and saw him go inside the grocery store about three stores down. Johan waited for Bane to exit; the large man took off his seatbelt but didn’t budge.

Johan looked out. There were a lot of people bustling about, no doubt doing their shopping and errands before the big snowstorm. A truck parked a few spaces down and he and saw a mother with a small child - a girl – around four or five years old exit the vehicle. The little girl was holding her mother’s hand bouncing up and down excitedly. She was wearing a chunky coat and a hat with a yarn pom-pom on top. Bane was looking at the mother and daughter, too. They disappeared into the feed store.

The boy tapped his fingers on his thigh to rid some of his nervous energy. “Are you not going with Barsad?”

The mercenary said nothing – the gray eyes continued to watch people scurry on the sidewalk in front of the SUV. The grocery store seemed to be especially busy. Johan squinted through the tinted glass of the grocery store and could make out a line at the nearest cashier.

_People are stocking up before the snow_ , thought Johan.

Bane still hadn’t answered him.

“Bane?”

“Do you ever wonder, Johan,” Bane began speaking, still looking at the townsfolk, “what might have been?”

Johan’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Had Talia and the League of Shadows not held my allegiance for a lifetime.” The boy saw in the rearview mirror one of Bane’s thick finger’s trace the shiny scar tissue on the man’s own upper lip. “Had you not been a subject of Dr. Saunders.” The man then felt the spot under his coat where the implanted port rested under his skin, the intravenous medication at his disposal at all times. “What might have been….”

Bane trailed off and didn’t speak more. Johan waited almost a full minute before replying, just to make sure the man was finished.

“Well,” Johan reasoned, “I guess I would have been, you know, _normal_. And your name wouldn’t be ‘ _Bane_ ’.”

“Indeed,” said the man.

“And Barsad wouldn’t be such a hardass.”

“Easy, now, my flower,” said Bane in a warning tone. “Barsad has cared for us well.”

Johan bit his bottom lip as he mulled over what happened last night between the two men.

“Bane?”

“Yes, my flower?”

“Have…have you and, ah, Barsad…”

Bane’s eyebrows rose in the rearview mirror. “Speak up, Johan. This reserved manner does not suit you.”

Johan’s face was flushing. “Have you and Barsad…have you slept together?”

Bane’s eyes were back to scanning the sidewalk in front the vehicle. The man was no doubt making mental calculations of who went in what store and how many people were in the general area.

“You have never inquired about this before.” Bane had an amused look on his face.

“Well have you?” Johan said in exasperation. _He never fucking answers any question,_ the boy thought in annoyance _._ “The way Barsad spoke to you this morning…” the boy was struggling for the right words to say, “…I had never seen him act that way.”

To Johan’s surprise, Bane did answer: “Before you were mine, Johan, Barsad and I would take pleasure from each other’s bodies. Comrades in arms have often done so throughout history. Ra’s al Ghul encouraged members of the League of Shadows to seek comfort from our fellow initiates.” Bane was making steady eye contact with the boy at this point, his reconnaissance forgotten for the moment. “Had your Mr. Wayne been an initiate some years earlier, he would likely have found pleasure in my bed.”

Johan closed his eyes. This was the first time Bane had spoken Bruce’s name since leaving Gotham.

_He’s just trying to get a rise out of me_ , Johan told himself. _Don’t let him_.

The boy opened his eyes and stared back at Bane. He said flatly, “So you and Barsad were friends with benefits.”

“If that is the colloquialism, then yes.”

“When did it stop?”

“The night I first claimed you,” Bane said. “That was when you became _mine_. I no longer needed another.”

Johan remembered that night: the dank space under the Gotham sewers, the single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, the dirty mattress on the floor. The boy had bled a lot that night, even with the nanomachines.

“Is he mad you don’t sleep with him anymore?” Johan inquired as he did some quick inward calculations.

Johan became Bane’s prisoner last November when Gotham was under the Occupation. Then Bane had been held captive by Ra’s al Ghul. That meant Bane and Barsad hadn’t been together for over a year. And Barsad for sure had no action with anyone in the last three months. It would have been too risky.

_That’s a bad case of blue balls_ , Johan realized. _Meanwhile Bane’s been getting his rocks off at least a few times a week._

“He is not ‘ _mad’_ as you put it, my flower. Barsad is loyal to me. And he knows my manner of behavior.”

“Which is?”

“You are mine, body and soul. I will never stray from you, Johan,” Bane said as he turned around in his seat to face the boy. “I would perish before letting us part.”

The boy could tell that Bane wanted to kiss him. Since Bane had been able to fully replace the mask, he relished in kissing the boy whenever he could. Johan had to admit he still got a fluttery feeling in his stomach at the newfound romantic gestures. And deep down, Johan had a sense the man did as well. Not that the man would ever admit such a thing.

As much as Johan saw the yearning in Bane’s eyes, the man opted to brush the back of his hand on Johan’s face in a swift caress before he turned back around to face forward.

_He doesn’t want wandering to eyes to see anything_ , the boy knew. _A middle-aged man kissing a teenager – a male teenager – would draw too much attention._

Bane went back to surveying the area without another word on their conversation.

Johan sighed _._ “You can help Barsad with the shopping. I won’t run, I already told you that.”

“That is true. However, it was brought to my attention you may have a seizure and…what was it? Ah, yes, _choke on your own blood_.” Both man and boy made eye contact through in the rearview mirror. “I would be remiss to leave you here. Alone.”

The boy groaned inwardly. _Touché_.

They both returned to a comfortable silence. The boy started to become restless with waiting. He unfastened his seat belt and turned in a 180-degree arc to see what was across the street behind him.

His eyes widened.

A tall man was standing on the sidewalk directly in back of the SUV. He was speaking with a woman who was holding a package, likely bound for the post office down the street. The tall man was wearing a pair of hunter green pants with a tan button up shirt under a dark bomber jacket. A duty belt hung around the man’s waist with an issued sidearm. The ensemble was finished off by the campaign hat atop the man’s head.

_He can’t be more than 20 feet away_ , Johan thought as he estimated the width of the road.

After a few more moments of what appeared to be pleasantries exchanged between them the woman walked away. The man gave a final wave to the woman and was about to enter the building behind him.

That was when the man made eye contact with Johan through the glass of the back windshield. The window of the vehicle wasn’t tinted so the man could see the boy quite clearly.

“Do not make any sudden movement movements.”

It was Bane’s voice from the front seat. Bane had made sure to keep himself facing forward but Johan knew he was watching from the rearview mirror.

The boy froze. The man saw Johan looking at him and brought his hand up in a greeting. Johan still didn’t move. The man kept his hand up for another few seconds then dropped it. He stared at Johan for a moment more before entering the double doors behind him.

Johan trailed his eyes up the top of the building. Bold black letters read: **Royal County Sheriff’s Office.**

“Already you have made a friend.”

The statement made Johan’s blood instantly chill. Bane was still facing forward as he spoke.

_Fuck_ , the boy thought.

“You picked a bad parking spot,” Johan spat. _Right across from the fucking police station._

Bane’s mouth tightened before speaking, “The Sheriff’s office is usually closed this day of the week. They are to be operating solely by dispatch. The deputy being present now is…irregular.”

“But now he’s seen me!” Johan said in a hurried whisper. He leaned forward to speak into Bane’s ear: “Please don’t do anything to hurt that guy. It’s _your_ fault he even saw me. You told Barsad to park _here_.”

Bane’s meaty hand shot back and gripped Johan’s thigh. The man squeezed harshly and caused the boy to let out a yelp.

“You dare speak to me in this manner?” he whispered menacingly. The light tone of their previous conversation was gone.

The grip tightened. Johan sucked in a pained breath. His leg as already throbbing. Bane turned his head so that he was eye-to-eye with the boy. “There is no reason to extend any harm to the deputy. That would draw suspicion to us, would it not?” The fingers dug even further into Johan’s muscle.

“Bane,” the boy grunted, “ _stop_. You’re hurting me.”

Bane was breathing heavily as Johan’s eyes were brimming with tears of agony.

“If you converse with me that way a second time, I will not withhold punishment.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry!”

Bane watched as the tears started rolling down the boy’s face. Johan looked into the man’s gray eyes.

“I’m sorry,” the boy again with trembling lips.

The man let go. The boy gulped in a breath of relief. He rubbed his leg wildly trying to get the circulation back to his calf. He winced in discomfort as his hand massaged the tender area.

“Dry your tears, my flower.”

The boy was already using his coat sleeve to wipe the slickness off his cheeks.

“Jeez, give me a second,” he said in between jagged breaths. He swallowed some snot that had made its way to the back of his throat and wiped his nose with his hand.

“ _Now_.”

“I am, what’s wro-,” Johan started then stopped.

The boy saw a flash of legs with hunter green pants in the rearview mirror. His golden eyes darted to the passenger side mirror: the tall Sheriff’s deputy was making a beeline towards their vehicle. He had a friendly smile and his hand was up in a gesture of greeting.

Bane spoke in a low voice to Johan: “Remain calm, my flower, and no one will die today.”

Johan gulped. _For this guy’s sake I hope so._


End file.
